September 4, 2008

This particular write serves better as a continuation from the previous read on Trust and Faith Misunderstood.

With the amount of mistakes I constantly made, I know I had many opportunities to understand trust and forgiveness through the pain, frustration and guilt in my life. At this point today, I believe in this quote: ‘If you haven’t made any mistakes, you haven’t taken enough risks.’ And I would have learned nothing.

It’s from these many learning opportunities I realized that if we have to forgive someone or carry a grudge, it is we who carry the emotional baggage and not them. When we truly forgive someone, it is we who feel really light hearted. They on the other hand have the choice to care less or help us heal. And as painful and heavy this is, there are ways to feel lighter without having to deal with the person or system we believe created this painful situation. Life teaches us lessons in unexpected ways and sadly this is one of them. If you are at this juncture, its also quite clear that the concepts of trust and faith have been misunderstood leading to this hurtful emotion.
.

~Crossing a boundary?~

While somewhere we believe that some of our limits/boundaries have been crossed, some of us still keep the courage to do the right thing. In this article I will try to logically present the answer you are looking for with the best possible forms of reason. The concept of forgiveness is something that even people with healthy self esteem tend to confuse and struggle over. Bear with me as I demonstrate the ‘act of being unforgiving towards others’ is really an illusion and were are truly unforgiving of ourselves instead. It is then not ‘our’ boundary wall that they cross but it is the boundary wall we put around them that they cross. I will start with the basics of choice as the fundamentals to this understanding.PS. I will not attempt to justify any form of forgiveness towards physical abuse at this time. But for those desperately seeking answers here, please read up on Past Life Karmas and Life Path to understand the holistic purpose of this act
.

~Choice~

We all make choices. Some of us know the outcome and hence make informed choices. Some, on the other hand (mostly wishful thinkers), make choices with the expectation of a positive outcome, ignoring the other hurtful possibilities. The more experienced on the other hand makes a conscious choice after accepting the possibility of a bad outcome while hoping for the good. These are common in the stock market where a sensible investor takes a loss in the same spirit as he would take a profit. With every choice comes emotional responsibility for its outcome no matter how bad or good it maybe.

~Mutual Respect~

We also expect others to respect our good and bad choices just as we respect theirs; especially their bad ones. A parent disapproving their daughter’s choices of a boyfriend in a dating scene usually results in the daughter being upset over it. She expects her parents to respect her choices just as she respects theirs. She expects that they trust her with the knowledge they themselves educated her with. Without mutual respect there is no healthy relationship.
In this personal journey of self discovery, everyone has the freedom to make mistakes, take responsibility and learn from it. The fear of the inability to cope is the only reason why we cannot accept a bad outcome. If we cannot accept the bad outcomes of our own choices, we can never accept the bad outcome of other’s choices either. In other words, if we cannot respect ourselves and our choices, we cannot respect others and theirs.

.

~Forgiving others Or forgiving self?~

Usually when we are unforgiving of others, we are unforgiving of the choice they made. But, if somewhere in the back of our minds it clicks that those choices made by them should be respected as much as we’d expect them to respect our good and bad choices, only then will we understand that forgiving others is an illusion and that we are really trying to forgive ourselves for being ignorant of this concept (that we respect others for their choices good and bad as well, just as we expect them to respect ours). Forgiveness is a result of a misconception of trust..

~But what is this painful feeling inside us when someone does something hurtful?~

This painful feeling is the dependence on that person or system for love, attention and fulfilling our expectations . Had we been strong enough to love ourselves instead, fulfill our own needs and give ourselves the attention we deserve, this need or dependence on others would disappear. We would then look at this whole situation very differently. We would see that this person is only making choices that he or she needs while in the process of self discovery. It has nothing to do with us and everything to do with only them. When we accept that, we unconditionally love and accept ourselves and unconditionally love and accept them. That’s true love.

~Empower Yourself~

However, many of us live outside this reality and play a painful game of master and slave where the slave seeks forgiveness from the master. One needs to remember that a master can control the slave as much as the slave allows the master to control him. The only next step to freedom is self empowerment and that comes with understanding the power of choice. The habit of being unforgiving is a global epidemic and only through the understanding of choice can we be free of the burden we carry.
.

~Forgiveness in my relationship~

In my personal life a few years ago, I asked for forgiveness from two women I hurt through the choices I made. One of them said, “I will never forgive you for what you did to me,” and the other said “you are forgiven, I love you for who you are irrespective of your choices”. During that time I suffered low self esteem and the source of happiness in my life was the woman who did not forgive me. I never knew how to find happiness within myself and suffered a slave relationship trying to please her. As I grew stronger emotionally and built a healthy self esteem, I realized that I did not need others to forgive me for my choices. My choices were intended to make me happy. If I cannot be happy, I cannot make others happy and hence only through selfishness can come true authentic selflessness. If others cannot understand and respect this, it’s their inability to cope and not mine. I will make others happy only when I find happiness within myself. During that phase, I needed to forgive myself for the bad outcomes of my choices and learn to love myself unconditionally.

The power of forgiveness works at all times and for everyone. Forgive yourself, love yourself unconditionally, and help others heal just as you would heal yourself.

April 20, 2008

originally posted at evansnf.wordpress.com

Short answer first:
Spiritualists are way beyond self and hence self respect. This doesn’t mean that they don’t respect themselves. On the contrary, they highly do. The only difference is, they don’t do it the way regular people are seen doing it. Regular people like you and me are always hurt by certain actions of others especially loved ones. We get offended for the most part & take those actions personally. We then tell ourselves that no self respecting person will fall for this twice and hence do whatever is needed to protect ourselves from it happening again. This protection, the little firewall we build, is what we’d like to call self respect. I’m sure you recall this quote: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
Spiritualists on the other hand, are not hurt by other’s actions, they instead understand that those actions are rooted within the confusion in that person itself. We act emotionally out of control while in confusion, we react defensively in confusion, and all we are really trying to do is sort out this confusion. Unfortunately, while we’re trying to figure out ourselves, others get offended or may judge us.

Spiritualists do not judge people. According to them, a person is not bad, only the action or reaction is. It is a result of them sorting confusion in the best way they know how. They understand these people only behave irrationally out of ignorance of a better way. Lessons in life eventually mature people to evolve out of such ignorance and negativity transforming them into calm rational individuals. Everyone changes on their own time and spiritualists respect them and their present limitations; the eventual outcome is apparent. This understanding stems from the quality of unconditional love and acceptance. As quoted by Mahatma Gandhi,
“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.”

and now in detail…
Spiritualists were like you and me at some point in their past. However, today they have not only understood self, they have understood others and how the universe works. They focus on evolving everyone else in any which way possible (irrespective of time or action). If you think about it from a tainted point of view, Mahatma Gandhi and his non violent methods also lead to questions of self respect. In his time, we would think, ‘No self respecting man will let himself be humiliated like that’. A spiritualist instead says, ‘No self respecting man will do unto others as what he would not have done unto himself.’ It may takes years of getting humiliated before the oppressor realizes his act of oppression, hence the illusion of being humiliated did not go in vain. The humiliation is eventually seen in the oppressor through guilt and regret, which is a welcomed start to self evolution. One can attempt to see that the person causing you pain is only showing you your weak spots needing evolution; it’s never a personal attack; just an opportunity to learn within the bigger scheme of life. The point of this all is to learn what unconditional love really is.

~self empowerment~

Spiritualists have understood how to be self empowered. In a self empowerment workshop you can learn the reality that “no one can make you feel what you don’t want to without your permission” and when you feel pain towards an action performed by yourself or others, you are taught to rationalize and improve your emotional intelligence by either standing up to the adversary or gracefully absorbing the impact. When you realize that you can control the way you feel towards everything around you, you find yourself healing not only to your own self but even to others. Self Empowerment is the only start and solution to rational understanding of self and others.

~reincarnation principle in understanding self~

In a universe where we constantly re-incarnate to learn the lessons of life and self, the universe also gives materialistic power to those needing, wanting or obsessed by it. This is one positive answer towards understanding how some morally undeserving people climb ladders. The point of this universe is: Do what ever you need to do; take as much as time as you want to; we (universalists) are sure that you will evolve out of the confusion within your ego while you try to pursue true happiness. This behavior is clear in the pattern when we search for satisfaction in material, power, people etc. True satisfaction comes from understanding that material, power, people etc never contribute to happiness. Happiness comes through being in a state of absolutely no need and it comes from within. Incidentally, the only way we learn this is by trying to find happiness in material, people or power etc and each one of us has to go through the process of initiation spanning over lifetimes.

`

~What are the lessons that we need to learn over lifetimes?~

I would suggest a quick read on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs with regular cross reference to the different levels in Chakras. I used this search to pull results. Maslow, a psychologist whose findings very closely matched the chakra system, independently found this pattern and abstracted it to all humans. In this physical universe, we have 7 levels of initiation before we completely understand happiness. It starts at the lowest level in Maslow’s needs to the highest level of transcendence. The path is fixed for all participants and the growth spans over multiple lifetimes. More on this in a later write up.

`

~is there a quick how to solution?~

No; pain through experience is inevitable, but you can learn, understand and find true inner self through a process of learning what unconditional love is. There is plenty of text out on the internet to help you learn what unconditional love is and how to do it. Just remember that we are all conditioned. We’ve been taught to judge people from the very start to protect self. Barely do we realize that some of these rules for self protection are nothing but a double edged sword. While we continue to explore ourselves, our limits and life in all, in the fear of being judged, we hide our true selves from each other and even from self. This is the same as lying, even worse, lying to yourself.

~if I hold back pain longer, does it make me stronger?`~

Everyone has a break point and you will break eventually. The trick is to dissolve the pain instead of pushing back. Your strength is determined by your ability to understand pain and grow out if faster than you previously did. Just like a dam over capacity, we all have limits; the faster we let the water out, the lesser the chances of dam damage. Let go and let live!

~in pursuit of happiness~

If you do not believe in destiny, then you do not believe that you want to be happy. Happiness is your destination if that is where you naturally head out to or not. No matter what you do, your intent is happiness for yourself or others. For the smart asses who wish to oppose this view by saying, “I want to remain unhappy”, it is interesting to note that being unhappy makes them happy. Happiness is inescapable and so I welcome you to the destination of destiny.

Most Read Yesterday

A Promise!

Once upon a time, I was suicidal. But today, I look at it as the best thing that ever happened to me. That was the time I needed answers; answers to questions about the pain in my life. I started from the very bottom and questioned my entire existence. With the help of a number of sites and well written books, I managed to get many healing answers. I proved to myself how easy it was to be secured and happy within. Today I share with you summarized concepts of what I learned over the years from the very many wise that have walked this same very path. Knowledge is power & sharing is caring.

The existing content on this site will be constantly reviewed and enhanced. I track how you got to my page and what you are looking for; I use this to better the content. Please excuse the timely edits, typos and grammatical excursions if any. I believe that knowledge is like us; as we evolve, it does too. Change is the only constant.
If you wish to share your views, you can always email them to me @ evansnf [at] yahoo [dot] com.
Love & Best Wishes,
Evans